BEIJING - Ma Youtie is a dirt-poor farmer living in China’s Gansu province.

When viewers first meet him, he lives in a shed owned by his brother, owns little more than an old donkey, and is looked down upon for being the poorest in his village. His family pushes him into a union with a disabled woman, Cao Guiying, who is a fellow outcast in the village. To their families it is a marriage of convenience, so that they can be rid of their respective burdens.